Crumbs on the Table

My new favorite TV show is Rock of Love Tour Bus with Bret Michaels. It is riveting televison. I know that brain cells are disintegrating in my head as I watch the show, but I can't shut it off. Sunday will be the season finale where Bret will pick his Rock of Love, as well as supposedly being the series finale. As much as I enjoyed the first two seasons, this Tour Bus season has been the best of them all. Poison frontman Michaels comes across as a fidelity challenged, yet very likeable star of the show.

On Tuesday, I was really looking forward to the first episode of the television show Rescue Me in almost two years. My wife and I are big Denis Leary fans and attend his Comics Come Home benefit every year. Before going off the air and skipping last season due to the Writer's Strike, Rescue Me was one of my favorite shows on TV. After watching Tuesday's season opener, I came away disappointed. I waited that long for THAT? The first episode reminded me of Seinfeld where nothing happened, except Seinfeld happened to be funny. I can't recall a worse episode of Rescue Me than this season opener. I found myself bored watching it.

I really enjoy playing golf and tennis. I find both sports to be great fun, and in the case of golf, addicting. However, I can't stand watching either on TV or listen to analysis about them on the radio. When a sports radio station starts talking about a golf tournament, nothing makes me reach for a car radio button to change the station faster. FLICK!

Exactly why do ten year old kids need a cellphone and what planet are these parents that give these kids cell phones at that age on?

I just finished reading "Boys Will Be Boys: The Glory Days And The Party Nights Of The Dallas Cowboys" by Jeff Pearlman. I found this to be the best sports book I've read since "Snake" by Ken Stabler. While Pearlman's prose is occasionally redundant (I believe he described Aikman as enjoying country music and cold beer three times in the book), his writing style is very readable and enjoyable. I couldn't put the book down. Extra credit is given to Pearlman for his two page thrashing of the loathsome ESPN "personality" Skip Bayless. The most fascinating part of the book is Pearlman's character sketch of Hall of Famer Michael Irvin.

Opening Day!

Despite the World Champion Phillies opening the season with a loss to America's Team (the Braves) last night, I'll declare today to be Opening Day with thirteen games scheduled today. After a few years of wise decisions by MLB where most of the Opening Day games being held in the warmer climates of the south, California, and dome stadiums, MLB inexplicably reverted back to scheduling Opening Day games in Chicago and Boston. Because of this decision, the Royals-White Sox game has already been postponed due to snow in Chicago today and the Rays-Red Sox game is in jeopardy of being postponed due to rain.

One of the biggest MLB disappointments of the last ten years has to be Nationals 1B Nick Johnson. He tore up the minor leagues back in his Yankee days and was ticketed to for superstardom. He's got power and has a great batting eye - .396 lifetime OBP. However, he just cannot stay on the field due to injuries and his numbers suffer for it. Some guys are made of glass and Johnson is one of those players.

I barely recognize anyone from the Nationals pitching staff.

The Yankees defense looks to be among the worst in MLB.

Looking at the Cincinnati Reds offense, they may only score about as often as an MLS soccer team. The days of the Big Red Machine seem like a century ago.

The worst free agency signing this past offseason is the Giants giving Edgar Renteria ridiculous money. How do GM's like the Giants Brian Sabean and the Padres Kevin Towers continue to hold onto jobs? The teams they construct are always either terrible or mediocre.

Perusing the St. Louis Cardinals roster, it's looks like it could be a long year for the Cardinals and their fans. That team that won the World Series in 2006, is completely dismantled. That's a shame, because that team has great fans, but owner Bill DeWitt has been on a penny pinching roll the last few years and it's hurting the product.

Sunday Quickie

Come on, Boston Red Sox. Can't you get someone better to throw out the first pitch than Ted Kennedy? Ted is as polarizing a public figure as anyone. It's going to be embarrassing when half the crowd boos him. Are the Red Sox really assuming that the Fenway crowd will conduct itself with class by giving Teddy a polite cheer? Remember, this is the same group of people that shout "Yankees Suck!" at games and wear T-shirts to the games that say, "Jeter Swallows".

The New York Times is threatening to shut down the Boston Globe, unless the unions make concessions which would strip or reduce benefits and promises made to the workers as part of their contracts. While I feel badly for the pressmen and the people that produce the paper, this is not a surprise to me. If you read both the Boston Herald and Globe on a daily basis, it is like reading about two separate worlds. The Globe has chosen to be chummy with Beacon Hill insiders. The Herald has become the paper of investigative record, constantly unearthing evidence of corruption and self serving behavior by politicians. To put it bluntly, the Globe has been getting its collective ass kicked in terms of news reporting by the Herald.

Here's where the Globe continues not to "get it". Their transparent liberalism is on display every day in the papers; so much so, that it permeates every non op ed political story they do. Yet, in today's article about the possibility of the Globe shutting down, one of the sentences from the story that is mind boggling says that critics say the paper is a victim of its liberal bias, but these critics don't provide specific eamples.

My responses to this silly sentence are the following:

1.) Who was the last Republican to run for Governor, U.S. Senate, or President that received a Globe endorsement in a general election?

2.) When Deval Patrick proposed a $0.29 gas tax hike, the Globe gleefully endorsed it saying that that responsible people sometimes need to make difficult decisons, as opposed to the Globe taking a moderate, prudent view of encouraging Beacon Hill to cut waste.

3.) They should go back and read their cheerleading coverage of the Obama Presidential campaign from the last 12 months.

While the Globe has revived its sports coverage in recent years with the addition of Mike Reiss and Chad Finn, the continued presence of lazy, entitled columnists Dan Shaughnessy and Nick Cafardo continue to be a drag on the sports page.

Cutler Traded to Bears

After acting like a crybaby when word came out that the Denver Broncos were interested in QB Matt Cassel, the Broncos have jettisoned Jay Cutler to the Chicago Bears. Cutler, seeming to forget that professional sports is a business, had his nose out of joint regarding the Cassel inquiries and refused to come to some sort of agreement/consensus with new head coach Josh McDaniels and owner Pat Bowlen.

The Broncos got a ransom of draft picks, along with QB Kyle Orton from the Bears who haven't had a good QB in 20 years, since Jim McMahon was there. Cutler made a big mistake by allegedly not returning phone calls from McDaniels and Bowlen. Denver has one of the most talented young offenses in the NFL and Josh McDaniels' system would certainly benefit his career. Now Cutler is in Chicago, with mediocre offensive talent, and best of all, he and Bears Offensive Coordinator Ron Turner, have some bad blood going back to when Cutler was being recruited for college.

I believe the Broncos got the best of the trade. With the two first rounders they received from the Bears, they can focus on fixing up a porous defense that was among the worst in the NFL last year. McDaniels proved last year that he can tailor a system to an inexperienced QB last year when he helped Matt Cassel become a top 10 QB in the NFL.

Top 15 Paul McCartney Post Beatles Songs

After reviewing my ten favorite Rolling Stones songs last Saturday and considering the feedback to my list, I decided to tackle my favorite Paul McCartney songs. I could easily pick off 10 popular Beatles songs, but I believe it to be more interesting to cover his post Beatles career. Pardon my blasphemy, but I like his solo career better than his Beatles career.

Full disclosure: I believe that Paul McCartney is second to no one when it comes to the title of the greatest musician of all. Elvis Presley ain't the king, Paul McCartney is THE KING. Elvis burned out at age 42. McCartney keeps going and at age 66, is still touring and making music. Elvis may have been a great performer on stage and a terrific singer, but wasn't much of a musician or songwriter. Elvis mostly performed other people's songs often times to perfection (Elvis' last hit single, Burning Love from 1972, is one of the most underrated rock n roll songs/performances ever). Paul McCartney is blessed with one of the greatest voices in rock music, no one writes a better melody, and he can play bass, guitar, piano, keyboards, drums, etc.

Now, not all of Paul's music is good. He's written a lot of awful songs and sometimes his laziness when it comes to the lyrics is embarrassing. He also has had several dreadful albums - see McCartney II (1980), Off The Ground (1993), Wings Wild Life (1971), Press To Play (1986), and Red Rose Speedway (1973). If I had to pick the worst one, it would have to be Red Rose Speedway, an album full of lightweight, half baked (or in Paul's case at the time, very baked), ditties that go nowhere. Song titles such as "Single Pigeon", "Little Lamb Dragonfly", and "Loup (The First Indian On the Moon)", tell you all you need to know about the poor quality of the songs on Red Rose Speedway. But I digress...

Anyway, we're here to celebrate the great songs of Paul McCartney's post Beatles career, so without further ado, here's my list in reverse order:


15.) Figure Of Eight - this is from 1989's Flowers In The Dirt. For most of the 1980's, Paul's songs didn't go far enough. He'd have a good idea and foundation for a song, but it would seem unfinished. Figure of Eight went all the way. There are actually two versions of Figure of Eight (not counting the live version from Tripping The Line Fantastic). There's the original album version and also there's a version that was released as a single. I played this song so much when it came out, that my college roommate Jim still gets a little bitter thinking about it

14.) Beware My Love - from 1976's Wings At the Speed of Sound this song is a heavy and hard rocker featuring nasty lead guitar by Wings' guitarist Jimmy McCulloch and a tremendous vocal from McCartney. It is a shame that Beware My Love is never played on the radio.






13,) Jenny Wren - from 2005's Chaos and Creation in the Backyard (dumb album name), Jenny Wren is a gorgeous and moody acoustic song similar to Blackbird, and it features a duduk solo (Armenian woodwind instrument) in the middle of the song. This song marks a departure from the normal upbeat McCartney fare, as does the entire CACITB album, due to the presence of producer Nigel Godrich. Godrich allegedly wasn't afraid to give his famous client the boot in the ass that he badly needed, telling him that many of his songs that were originally ticketed for the album were crap and to go back and write more. Because of this, the album has several strong songs and is very good, in no small part to Godrich's presence.

12.) Let Em In - another one from Wings At The Speed of Sound, the piano driven Let Em In comes across as breezy and effortless. I find the song to be almost hypnotic. Paul will still occasionally include it in a live set list. I still remember the big cheer that came from the 60,000 strong at the old Foxboro Stadium when the doorbell intro to this song played, when I thought I was the one of the only ones there that would appreciate it being played!

11.) Arrow Through Me - from 1979's Back to the Egg, this is a shameless pop/disco song featuring nothing but synthesizers which also serve as fake horns and drums. Despite its comical outdatedness, I still really like the song, because it is quite different than most of his songs. It was released as a single and peaked at #29 on the charts.

10.) Every Night - this was one of the few songs that sounded "finished" from Paul's first solo album McCartney. Every Night is an acoustic guitar song about chilling out and staying home with a lady, presumably Linda.

9.) My Love - one of the few good songs from 1973's Red Rose Speedway, the smoochy My Love is Paul's tribute to Linda's, er, um, skills in bed. My Love features what is easily the best guiltar solo to ever appear on a McCartney record by Wings guitarist Henry McCullough. The solo is very powerful and tastefully done. Unfortunately, McCullough left the group not long after.




8.) Live and Let Die – 1973 –this is the song that got Paul out of his post-Beatle doldrums. Live and Let Die was released between Red Rose Speedway and Band On the Run as the title track for the James Bond movie of the same name. Live and Let Die was the first Wings song released that was able to stand up to any of the Beatles work. In concert, this song is always a crowd pleaser with the explosions and lasers during the performance of it.

7.) Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five - piano driven rocker from 1973's Band On the Run, Ninteen Hundred and Eighty Five is the final song on the album. The song leads into an orchestra, where at the climax of the song, a reprise of Band on the Run is played. A very underrated song in the McCartney catalog.

6.) Coming Up - Coming Up was released in 1980 as part of the foul McCartney II album. There are two versions of this song – the original album version in which the vocals sound distant, as if they were 3 continents away and the rollicking live version. Both versions are good, I prefer the live version because as with just about every McCartney song, the “concert” versions of his songs are always better than the studio versions. They’re livelier and they rock harder. Beatle lore has it that Coming Up was supposedly one of the main reasons that John Lennon decided to make an album after a 5 year hiatus in which he devoted his time to being a father. Lennon was said to really like Coming Up and felt inspired by it.

5.) Listen To What The Man Said - from the 1975 Wings Venus and Mars album, Listen To What The Man Said was a monster hit and besides a terrific melody, it features a rare ona McCartney record saxophone solo. This is another one of those McCartney songs that sticks in your head for days when you hear it.




4.) Maybe I'm Amazed (Live) - two versions of this song - the 1970 original and the far better live version from 1976 from the Wings Over America live album. The performance of the live version is spectacular. Maybe I'm Amazed is a very powerful song that builds up and has Paul reaching the limits of his vocals along with great instrumental work and harmonies from Wings. Because of the strain on his vocals, Paul doesn't play this one in concert much anymore.

3.) Band On The Run - "Well the rain exploded with a mighty crash, as we fell into the sun. And the first one said to the second one there, I hope you're having fun." This title track leads off the Band On The Run album, considered by everyone to be Paul's best post Beatles work. Band On The Run has 3 parts to it, and is about prison escape and freedom. The song starts mellow, builds into a rocker, then into an acoustic strumming song featuring slide guitar and the usually strong McCartney vocals. Plain and simple, this is one of the best rock songs of the 1970s.

2.) Silly Love Songs - dismissed by critics as lightweight pop, lacking substance, and shamelessly commercial, Silly Love Songs was released on Wings At the Speed of Sound. I couldn't disagree more with the critics. The song is simplistic brilliance! Start with the bassline, which is anything but simple and lacking substance. It's awesome. Yes, I know the song is can be classified as "disco", but I love it. The song was his response to critics who would hammer him for writing love songs. The lyrics have a story to them and the song has a combination of strings, the Wings horn section, and a 3 part harmony with Paul, Linda, and Wings bandmate Denny Laine towards the end. Silly Love Songs is extremely catchy and is a great song.

1.) Jet - You can throw out Yesterday, Hey Jude, Let It Be, and all the rest, I believe Jet is the best song Paul McCartney has ever written. Jet is the second song from Band On The Run (how about that 1-2 punch to open an album - Band On the Run and Jet?), and has a tremendous intro to the song. Jet is a hard driving rocker and I believe it's also Paul's best vocal performance. Jet is still a concert staple and often times serves as a set opener. The lyrics are nonsensical and the song is supposedly about the McCartney dog. I have yet to figure out what they lyrics mean, but nonetheless, I love the song. Plain and simple, the Jet is a tour de force.

The Top Ten Rolling Stones Songs

Instead of the usual topics of sports and politics, I'm going to tackle a different subject which has been on my mind lately - what are my top ten Rolling Stones songs? The Stones have such a large catalog, it is difficult to remember all of the songs I like.

As with well known bands of the past like the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and The Who, there are famous songs by the Stones I honestly can't stand hearing any more. You know these songs - Start Me Up, Satisfaction, Let It Be, Black Dog, We Won't Get Fooled Again, etc. The songs that classic rock radio has beaten into submission. Those are the type of songs that will be missing from my top ten list.

So, without further ado, here are my top 10 Rolling Stones songs in reverse order.

10.) Crazy Mama - from 1976's Black and Blue. Black and Blue only had 8 songs and was, to put it charitably, extremely uneven in the quality of the songs (drugs had something to do with it). Crazy Mama is the final cut from the album and it rocks hard. Extremely underrated and very rarely played on the radio, this song is a treasure.

9.) Far Away Eyes - from 1978's Some Girls, this country ballad sung by Jagger in a faux Southern accent is always a great listen. The lyrics are pretty comical. Ron Wood on a pedal steel guitar sounds great.

8.) Happy - from 1972's Exile On Main St. - Keith Richards' signature song. Keith does the vocals and the song opens with a great riff. I always really liked this one

7.) Rain Fall Down - from 2005's A Bigger Bang. A Bigger Bang is one of the Stones' best albums, featuring several strong songs, and this is the one I like the best from the album. It's a funk driven Jagger number, that is reminiscent of Jagger's solo song "Sweet Thing". The song has a great groove to it. Despite it being a "Stones" album, A Bigger Bang is the Mick Jagger Show (along with Charlie Watts' drums - he's terrific on this album). If you listen to the album it's apparent that Mick's carrying the band at this point; a point that was proved to me when I saw them in concert in 2006.

6.) Hand of Fate - from Black and Blue, an album mostly recorded before Ron Wood officially became a member of the band. This song features studio musician Wayne Perkins on lead guitar and he nails a terrific solo to go along with the usually great Jagger vocal. The lyrics of this song remind me of an Old West shoot out.

5.) Mixed Emotions - this one was from the 1989 comeback album Steel Wheels, back when everyone was convinced Mick and Keith were going to break the band up because they couldn't get along. Mixed Emotions was the first single released and it features great guitar riffs and a superb Jagger vocal. After a few shoddy albums during the 80's, this was the song that alleviated any fears of those wondering whether the band still had it.

4.) Let It Bleed - the title track from the Stones' landmark 1969 album is a countryish sing along that starts off slow and builds up into some great slide guitar work. The lyrics on this song were pretty lewd for the time.

3.) Live With Me - from Let It Bleed - the song opens with a sinister bass line (for some reason, played by Keith Richards, not Bill Wyman) and kicks right into Mick Jagger describing some of the reasons a girl wouldn't want to live with him. The bass in this song is so good, you can almost see The Who's John Entwistle and Paul McCartney nodding their heads in agreement. This was one of the first songs Mick Taylor played on.

2.) All Down The Line - from Exile on Main St. - All Down The Line is exhibit A as to why Mick Taylor was so good in the Stones and why Ron Wood can never come close to being as good. Next time you hear it, listen to Taylor's slide guitar throughout the song. All Down the Line is one of several early 70's Stones' song in which the horns add so much to the song.

1.) Bitch - This song is from 1971's Sticky Fingers and it has it all. Great guitar licks, a rare driving bass line from Bill Wyman, Mick Jagger's best vocal performance, and to top it off, those tasteful horns. This song kicks ass.

Friday hits

The official season of spring is here and outside the weather is trying to put aside the effects of Old Man Winter for good. It will be in the mid 50's the next few days and I can live with that. Let's get to some Friday "tidbits and musings".

Yesterday, the Boston Herald ran a poll that asked readers to grade the performance of Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick. At last check, with 7,445 votes, 74% gave Governor Patrick a well deserved F. Patrick is nothing more than a tone deaf, clueless politician looking to curry favor with other power brokers. He's an empty suit whose policies and maneuvers are taking the "working families" of the Commonwealth to the woodshed.

Holly Robichaud in today's Herald is right on the money. I need to get a 01.06.11 bumper sticker - this date signifies when Patrick's first term is up.

Other than the Oprah Winfrey show, there's no show on TV I can't tolerate more than the Today Show. I can't even stand it as background noise. To me, the Today Show are nails on a chalkboard. It is dumbed down news with a hard liberal slant, in which they recycle the same story day after day. The absurdly overpaid anchors of the show attempt to be hard hitting (particularly when a Republican is on), but they can't overcome their lightweight nature. Also, those losers who stands outside the Today show studio in 25 degree weather with a sign in their hands in the hopes of getting briefly on TV, clearly have too much time on their hands.

Speaking of too much time on their hands, how about the group of buffoons who were protesting bottled water by dumping it in the Boston Harbor the other day? If you don't like bottled water, don't drink it! I happen to like it. It's America, you have freedom of choice in such regards. How about if these people instead go to work and be a productive member of society or at least go look for a job.

I'm very excited about a potential Red Sox starting rotation of Beckett, Dice K, Lester, John Smoltz, and Brad Penny. A starting rotation of those five pitchers is second to none in major league baseball. This is a rotation that does have guys with a checkered injury past, but Beckett and Smoltz are famous for coming up big in the postseason. Lester and Dice K also have had success in the postseason, as well.

On paper, the Yankees rotation of Sabathia, Burnett, Pettitte, Chamberlain, and Wang is very formidable. However, Sabathia and Wang have had terrible postseason histories and Burnett and Pettitte are being held together with bailing wire and duct tape. Chamberlain's motion is so violent, there's concern among scouts that he can't handle a starter's load. Joba finished last season on the DL with a bad shoulder.

Considering the movies that are played on HBO, getting a monthly subscription isn't worth it. However, the shows on HBO are superb. I've watched several of the series - The Sopranos, Entourage, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and the Wire, and all of them are far superior to the unoriginal, unfunny I Won't See TV on the major networks. As good as I thought The Sopranos was, it can't touch The Wire, which is phenomenal. I haven't seen a weak episode of The Wire, yet. The Sopranos, inexplicably, would get bogged down in Tony's anxiety issues, where scenes would get chewed up with him in his therapist's office. Yawn. The Wire ropes you right in and remains intensely interesting throughout the entire episode. Entourage is far better than The Sopranos as well.

I am stunned at the left wing columnists who buy right into the havoc the Democratic politicians in the House and Senate are inflicting upon our future with the absurd level of deficit spending, cheerfully proclaiming "Taxes will have to rise". Why are tax hikes something to celebrate? Just like at the state level, if the federal government had an unbiased auditors scrutinize the books and the payrolls, HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS of dollars in waste and fraud would be found.

Considering the deficits and debt we are running up, Bono of U2 can forget about the U.S. forgiving any Third World debt any time soon.

My buddy Jim just started his new blog. If you like baseball and are interested in reading some original analysis, you can find his blog here: http://tidbitsandmusings.blogspot.com/